Moments that mattered in 2013

Away with the Fairies has a fantastic prize up for grabs: http://www.awaywiththefairiesblog.com/2014/01/competition-win-ipad-mini-moments-that.html

And I love the concept of the competition. It is moments that mattered in 2013. Too often life just takes over and it is easy to dwell on the negatives rather than on the good things that happen in our lives. Even if I do not win this competition it gave me food for thought.

Since 2009 things have been hard for my husband and I. Our son was thrown out of so many different nurseries and finally, his school, for violent behaviour. He is intelligent, sociable and loving. However, he acted out and we became bogged down with all the negatives. Finally, in 2012 we were offered support and help from a team around the family who saw our struggles. Our son was given a statement of educational needs in April 2013. Before all of this there was a lot of finger pointing at our parenting and we were left scrambling for answers. With the statement we finally got some acknowledgement that our son needed help.

Still, we were left feeling bad. Was it something we did? Was it our parenting? We love our son to bits. Maybe we spoil him too much? And we could only see the bad points in our son's behaviour. That is until last October. He was assessed by a panel of specialists and we found out our son is autistic. How can he be autistic? Autistic children do not laugh, tell jokes, are very warm and loving and he is a chatterbox with a vocabulary years above his age. Plus, he is in a class with older children (he is only 5) and is able to keep up with them!

I started to appreciate the quirks that comes along with my son's condition. He is honest to a fault. He tells me EVERYTHING. Even when he is wrong he admits it. He also has a fantastic eye for details that I miss. He also takes no rubbish off of anyone. He enjoys being with people. Just before his 5th birthday he asked my friend's daughter to be his "girlfriend" and to this day he is devoted to her. He has asked me to help him buy her flowers, he makes cards for her and buys gifts. He also opens up doors for anything female! Now knowing about his condition I am able to understand things more and how he sees things. I am grateful for the help our family got from the professionals who listened to us and assisted in getting him diagnosed. And I now appreciate my son's difference without just looking at the negative side of his behaviour. And I would not change anything about him.

For me, the biggest moments that mattered was learning to appreciate my son just as he is.